Many posters have made good points in relation to the below previous discussion on World Title status, but I just thought I'd through in my 2 cents about what is out there that may be called a World Heavyweight Title. For this I'll examine the WWE, WCW, NWA, ECW, AWA, IWGP, and the Triple Crown.

First, the defunct ones

AWA - I'll admit my knowledge of how the AWA title claimed world championship status is weak, (gotta bone up on that section of the site) but regardless this titles as dead as a doornail. Even if someone was to buy, or does own the rights to the name, any claim that it is the same title as the old one is utterly ridiculous. The reason is simple: time. The amount of time that passed between the folding of the old AWA and the startup of any other one would be too great to claim they are filling a vacancy.

To elaborate a little, any time there is a vacancy, lineage is automatically broken. It can be salvaged, however, if the filling of the vacancy is done quickly enough. It relates to the nature of a championship as a claim to being the best in the world. (See my post on the Raw world title for elaboration.) It’s awfully hard to claim you're the best in a particular area if you have nothing to do with the last person to make that claim.

ECW - The main claim to the ECW title being a world title from a lineage standpoint was when then-Eastern Championship Wrestling Champ Shane Douglas won a tourney to fill the vacant NWA title and threw down the NWA belt, saying the (re-named) Extreme Championship Wrestling title was the true world title. It was this tourney that let Douglas claim world champion status, and ECW thereafter provided recognition (See Raw title post referenced above), continuing the lineage.

Some do not regard this as a good enough reason to accept the ECW title as a world title. This of course would mean that they shouldn't also recognize the NWA title, but I'll get to that later. Regardless, this is also dead. Not only did the company go out of business about a year and a half ago, but then both the last champ, Rhyno, and the owner, Paul Heyman, showed up on WWF television and got involved with other titles. Even when ECW came in as part of the storyline Invasion, both seemed to acknowledge the WCW title. With this, the claim to world title status was dropped, and the title was dead.

Now, for the living:

WWE - Man I hate that name. Anywho, the WWE title's origin is from 1963. When then-NWA champ Buddy Rogers lost the title to Lou Thesz in a one-fall match at a time when 2 out of 3 falls were common, promoters based in the northeast U.S. were outraged saying that the NWA had fallen asleep on the job and the integrity of the NWA title was no more, so they staged a tourney in Rio Di Janeiro to determine a new world champ under the auspices of the World-Wide Wrestling Federation. The tourney was won by...Buddy Rogers. This is all completely fiction. (And a consolidation of two separate fictions at that) But then again so is wrestling.

Since then the WWWF/WWF/WWE title has only been vacant a handful of times. And the organization quickly worked to fill the vacancy. Indeed the longest vacancy was for a 2-month period in fall 98, and they were trying to fill it during that period. If one accepts the events of 1963 as establishing a new World title, then they should have no problem accepting the WWE title. The fact that it’s the most widely recognized title in the U.S. helps too.

WCW – This title couldn’t be more of a mess if they tried. Officially Ric Flair is listed as the first champion, as of 11 Jan 1991. But let’s be honest, the real break in lineage off the NWA title was from when Flair was stripped of that belt in summer 91. (The whole situation with Tatsumi Fujinami is a retcon, at the time it was simply a controversy, not a title change.) Whereas the NWA, in the weak state it was in, didn’t get on the ball about filling the vacancy, the promotion of WCW, at the time still a member of the NWA, worked to quickly fill it, having Lex Luger vs. Barry Windham that same month.

Alas, things are not so simple as that. Of course the NWA title was eventually filled, and shown on WCW television of the day, separate from the WCW title, until WCW finally left the NWA for good over a controversy related to the tag titles. Not wanting the title to just vanish from the shows, especially since they owned the famed Big Gold Belt that represented it, they continued to use it as the WCW International title until the Intl title was unified with the WCW title later that year to create a single, definitive WCW title. Why they didn’t just do that right away I don’t know. But that means that the WCW title has _two_ lineages from the NWA title. And in many ways, the second lineage, from the Intl title, is stronger than both the first WCW title, and even the NWA title, as it was unbroken. Not a simple to figure out situation.

But it gets even stranger. In 2001, WCW shut down, and its assets were sold to the WWF. This included the titles, which soon appeared on WWF programming as part of the Invasion story line. After the botched story was ended, the WCW title hung around for a month, being referred to simply as the World Title, until it was unified with the WWF title in a one night tourney. The champ carried both title belts until a new WWE title belt was introduced shortly after Wrestlemania X8.

But wait there’s more. As of now, the two main WWE TV shows are being run as separate promotions. When WWE champ Brock Lesner announced he would only appear on Smackdown, Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff stripped Lesner of recognition as world champ, in the process ceasing to recognize the WWE title, and awarded recognition as World Heavyweight Champion to Triple H, who had been designated number one contender. Triple H’s prize? A certain Big Gold Belt. Later comments and video features make it certain that what Bischoff did was strip Lesner (and the WWE title) of the former WCW title lineage. That title, this title being discussed, is now held by Triple H. It’s just called by the generic name of “the World Heavyweight Championship.” (Note also how WWE never refers to the WWE Championship as anything else, never “world,” and rarely “heavyweight.”)

Whether or not this constitutes a legit world championship, I don’t know. It’s a bit too early to say, but the reasoning for the differing recognition, analyzed more deeply in that same post of mine I keep referring to, isn’t much worse than some of the reasons given in previous title lineage splits.

NWA – This title was created in 1948 when the National Wrestling Alliance was organized. Originally awarded to Orville Brown, when his career was ended by injuries suffered in a car wreck, recognition was transferred to Lou Thesz, who was already recognized as champ by the National Wrestling Association, a spin-off of the National Boxing Association. Subsequently, the Alliance took over administering the World Heavyweight title, and Thesz defeated other claimants, who had varying recognition, to become the most widely recognized World Heavyweight Champion.

While other claims to being the rightful champion, meaning the best in the world, arose, the lineage of this title was uninterrupted and quite certain until 1991, when reigning (8 time) champ Ric Flair was stripped of the title for signing with the WWF. As mentioned before, the NWA, as an organization, was weakened by the rapid expansion of the WWF, and some members didn’t want to recognize the quick filling of the vacancy by Luger. So the title was awarded to Masahiro Chono, who won a tournament staged with WCW’s cooperation in 8/92. It was defended separately from the WCW title until WCW and the NWA had a final falling out in 9/93. The NWA stripped reigning NWA champ Ric Flair (now a 9 time NWA champ, and an 11-time overall considering his 2 WWF title reigns) of recognition. See above for what happened in WCW after that.

The NWA does wind up holding a tournament for the title nearly a year later and it is won by Shane Douglas. See the ECW section above for what happened there. Another tournament was held a few months later and won by Chris Candido The title’s been vacant a couple of times since, but its been quickly filled fast enough. It can even be seen on a weekly basis on the NWA-TNA PPV showcase.

This to many is the one, true World’s heavyweight championship, due to its extensive history. But there are others that don’t even recognize it as a world title at all. They point to the low profile it’s had in the 90’s, the two 1-year-long gaps where it was vacant, the reorganization the NWA has undergone as a legal entity, and the very existence of the WCW title as a higher profile rival to claim the pre-91 lineage. To them the NWA title is the old title in name only. And even the name, being “National”, not “World” or “International,” hurts the cause.

I would have tended to put myself in the later category before June 19th, 2002, but the launch of NWA-TNA has restored much of the luster to the old Dome Globe Belt. Alas, however, I do not think this controversy will ever die until the day that the NWA and (former) WCW title are reunified. Since WWE owns the Big Gold Belt, that probably won’t happen.

IWGP – This title, the top title in New Japan, was created in 1983 and awarded to the winner of a tournament, which featured a round robin of notables from around the world, including some with (weak) claims to world title status, with the top two finishers facing off in a match. The finalists were Antonio Inoki and Hulk Hogan, and Hogan won. At first the title was only defended once a year, with the challenger being determined in a tournament, but by 1987 it had become a more regularly defended title. Its vacancy rate has been comparable to other top titles.

To see if this passes muster as a world title, one must understand why the original tournament was staged: to determine who was really the best wrestler in the world. Of course the reigning WWF, NWA and AWA champs did not participate. This at first appears completely disqualify it as a world title, but the argument could also be made that each of the 3 champs was ducking top contenders and therefore were not worthy of championship status. It is an argument that I’m kinda buy, but in many ways it is up to the individual. I’m still not sure.

Another knock on it is the lack of defenses and title changes outside Japan. But countering that is the many cross promotional events WCW and New Japan had, where WCW recognized that the IWGP title was a claim to the World Heavyweight Tile. They may have disagreed, as they had their own champion, but it served to introduce the idea that the IWGP title is a world title to North America, and brought the title itself to these shores.

Triple Crown – This title, the top in All-Japan, was formed by the unification of the Pacific Wrestling Federation, NWA International, and NWA United National titles. The first to hold all three was Jumbo Tsuruta, who unified them as of 18/04/89. They, it, has been a package deal since. Vacancies have been few and far between and for the most part filled quickly.

Alas, this title is disqualified from world status from the start. The unification of a regional title, the PWF title, and two belts that always sat below a true world title, the NWA Intl and U.N. titles, do not a world title make. Which is a shame, because in many ways this has all the trappings of a world title, with the prestige and focus on it like one. However, it’s really just a glorified regional title.

I’m sure that last line will get me in trouble. Anyway, that’s what I’ve got. I’d like to hear some thoughts on it. And what about other titles I didn’t cover?

The kayfabe story was that NWA champ Pat O'Connor refused to defend against '#1 contender' Verne Gagne, so O'Connor was 'stripped' and the new title awarded to Gagne. This was 1960. Gagne also cited a win over Carpentier who had a title claim based on a win over Thesz in '57 (BIG mess, covered well by Hisa on the main site).

Reality: Just business between Verne and Sam Muchnick. Verne wanted to go independent of the NWA with the Minneapolis promotion and he and Sam worked out the deal. Sam let Verne use O'Connor's name for the cover story. Verne had already held the Omaha world title several times by then which was to be unified with the AWA title 3 years later.

You should look at the Los Angeles WWA title which was the most direct offshoot of the Thesz-Carpentier controversy, predated the AWA title, and DURING the '60s was looked on as one of the 'Big 4', although for some reason nobody seems to want to admit it these days.

Originally posted by oknazevad Alas, things are not so simple as that. Of course the NWA title was eventually filled, and shown on WCW television of the day, separate from the WCW title, until WCW finally left the NWA for good over a controversy related to the tag titles.

The split had nothing to do with the tag title, as both sets of belts were nothing more than WCW company championships.

WCW taped footage of Rick Rude as the NWA World champion at Disney/MGM for their show WCW World Wide several months before he was scheduled to win it in the ring. The NWA didn't approve of this because they didn't want him as champion, and the two parties squabbled over it before WCW finally notified them that they were not going to be renewing their membership at the annual meeting in September.

In addition, a couple of other factors also helped contribute to them severing ties, including WCW's refusal to grant other members dates with the champion, and from what I heard from at least one other source, them not wanting to pay a booking fee everytime the champion wrestled, as they felt it was ridiculous because he was under contract to them.

Thanks for the clarification. I had thought that the NWA was upset at WCW for unifying the respective tag titles, but I shuld have paid more attention to the dates.

As for Rude, I guess the NWA didn't think he was truly world title material. That brings up two points.

One is something I forgot to mention while listing the knocks on the modern NWA title. Namely, during the period when both the NWA and WCW titles coexisted on WCW TV, WCW very much pushed their own title as the top one and treated the NWA title as secondary, reducing the prestige of the title.

The other is that its kinda funny that the other NWA members didn't like Rude as champ since, after WCW bolted, they probably would have loved to have had someone as well known as Rude as champ. After all, most of the NWA champs since then haven't exactly been household names.

Originally posted by oknazevad Thanks for the clarification. I had thought that the NWA was upset at WCW for unifying the respective tag titles, but I shuld have paid more attention to the dates.

No, the revived NWA World tag title was nothing more than a second WCW company controlled tag team title, except it just had the "NWA" letters in front of it.

From what I understand, the original plan under K. Allen Frey was to simply change the name of the promotion and all of the titles back to "NWA", but they decided not to on the grounds that all the name switching would be extremely confusing to the fans. When Bill Watts came in, for whatever reason, he didn't want anything to do with the NWA letters at all, so he decided to kill the tag titles right off the bat by unifying them with the WCW tag belts. As for the world singles title, he couldn't do anything to get rid of that since it was officially recognized by the Board of Directors, but he did manage to cancel a PPV that was originally set to air in August highlighting the tournament in Japan.

One is something I forgot to mention while listing the knocks on the modern NWA title. Namely, during the period when both the NWA and WCW titles coexisted on WCW TV, WCW very much pushed their own title as the top one and treated the NWA title as secondary, reducing the prestige of the title.

Yeah, definitely. Tony Schiavone would always make reference to the WCW title as the "World title" while the NWA title was always just basically the "NWA title". They really didn't start to play up the importance of it until Flair came back. In fact, and I obviously could be wrong about this, but I personally don't even remember them making reference to it as a "world" title at all until Flair DID come back!

Granted, when Flair returned the NWA World Title had a spotlight cast upon it, but I also recall some really solid title defenses from Windham and then some crappily booked matches during Chono and Muta's reigns (Bill Watts booked crap for the NWA because he didn't like having the initials around at all and actually tried to stop the entire tournament from having anything to do with WCW). They made a big deal out of Arn Anderson having a series of World Title matches with Windham to win the title he'd always helped protect. While the main focus was on the WCW strap, I think they did a good job of reminding people that it was a World Title; even before Flair came back. Just my two cents worth, though.

That brings up another interesting point. WWF/WWE has long since stopped calling the WWF/WWE Title either "World" or "Heavyweight." It's simply the WWF Title. Even the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship is now just called the Intercontinental Title.

Meanwhile, through the 90s WCW made sure to call all of their big titles "World Titles." And United States Title was definately a "Heavyweight" Title.

One could argue that The WWF has given up claim to World Title status through these actions. All they claim is that the WWF Champion was the champion of The World Wrestling Federation.

WCW and ECW did have their belts defended against outsiders on occasion, WWF in the 90s did not (to my knowledge).

WWF doesn't claim that their Champions are better than wrestlers in other companies, they usually just ignore the fact that those companies exist.

I personally have decided not to recognize any World titles now. I do acknowlegde All-Japans World Tag-Team championship as the only one, as it has a good strong lineage. I beleive that Triple H is the closest thing to a World champion out there, but since the belt is only defended aganist a small number of people in only half of the WWE roster, then I just can't see it any more than the RAW championship. The NWA championship is no longer strong enought to be claimed a World title, as it is controlled by a peice of garbage rather than the NWA board, it is not even worthy to be considered.

Originally posted by Talison That brings up another interesting point. WWF/WWE has long since stopped calling the WWF/WWE Title either "World" or "Heavyweight." It's simply the WWF Title. Even the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship is now just called the Intercontinental Title.

If memory serves, they phased out the "heavyweight" designation from the IC title around 1988. As for the WWF title itself, I know that ring announcer Howard Finkel continued to refer to it in his intros as the "World Wrestling Federation heavyweight championship" until sometime in 1989. That's what he called Randy Savage at Wrestlemania V, but by SummerSlam, Hogan was announced as just the "World Wrestling Federation champion".

One could argue that The WWF has given up claim to World Title status through these actions. All they claim is that the WWF Champion was the champion of The World Wrestling Federation.

Even though they stopped using the terms "world" and "heavyweight" on a regular basis at the tail end of the 80s, people will always occasionally slip them in every now and again. I remember Vince McMahon introducing Bret Hart on at least one occasion as the "World Wrestling Federation heavyweight champion" back in the mid-90s, and more recently, Stephanie called Brock Lesnar the "WWE World champion" when she moderated the face-to-face confrontation he had with The Undertaker last year. And there have been several other instances I can think of where a wrestler or announcer has used the "world" and "heavyweight" designation, with Michael Cole making reference to the U.S. title as the "United States heavyweight title" coming to my mind as the most recent.

I consider several things when it comes to a title getting world title status.

<span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>Reach</span>. The promotions ability to operate on an international scale at any moment should be a means of receiving world title status if you can have a defense in Finland then in Norway the next night. This is one of the reasons WWE and WCW were able to retain world title status even if they hadn't left the United States for months on end.

<span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>Title changes</span>. Another thing I look at is the title history. If it's been lost or won in other countries it should receive world title status if the title was already being defended on a national level in the country that the company is based in such as the IWGP title changing hands in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji or America a few times

<span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>Recognition</span> is another way of getting world title status. A notable example would be when George Hackenschmidt winning world title tournaments in Italy Germany and England and defeating the American champion.

He was recognized at the first National Wrestling Association champ in 1904.

Another notable example would be Eddie Gilbert leaving the

GWF promotion for Memphis, where he was billed as the GWF World Heavyweight Champion.

<span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>Unification</span>. When Jerry Lawler unified the AWA World and WCCW Heavyweight titles together resulting in the USWA "Unified World heavyweight title" that pretty much gave WCCW world title status even after being deunified (is that a word?) with the AWA World heavyweight championship.

WCW - When other NWA promotions became inactive WCW was basically the lingering NWA's top territory. WCW and the NWA where never one but WCW for a while in the 1980s and early nineties keeping the barely active NWA alive. It was as if the NWA was a WCW territory. All the top names and all the Pay Per Views where WCW's and there advertisement of the NWA titles were the only things telling fans that the alliance was still around. When WCW withdrew from the NWA in 1993 they were left without a champion and remained idle. The best way to compare wcw and the nwa is to look at them both in 1995. WCW took the only thing the nwa had left to offer and that was its world title status.

NWA - The National wrestling alliance (1993-present) is still linked to the National Wrestling Alliance of old (1948-1993) even though they cant even through one lousy Starrcade.There legal actions against WCW after the succession retaining to WCW's use of the NWA name showed that while still only idle not yet defunct.The NWA heavyweight title is linked to the NWA World title only because the nwa didn't go out of business entirely.

I want recognize an NWA World title today but will recognize an NWA World champion.

If say former NWA World tag team champions such as Scott Steiner (circa 1989) the remaining Road Warrior, Arn Anderson or Ron Simmons wanted to compete in TNA and one the NWA title I would recognize them as world champions. The same thing for former world champs sting and Terry Funk.Its why Shane dropping the nwa title and proclaiming the ecw title the only world title had merits.

ECW - Eastern Championship Wrestling was pretty much unknown to most but got some unexpected attention when some "former" top names such at Don 'Magnificent' Muraco, Terry Funk, Tito Santana and Jimmy 'Super fly' Snuka competed and one the upstart company's title in the early years.ECW's main argument for world title status is that of the event that took place with the NWA title tourney debacle, the Shane Douglas spectacle, the abdication, and the disorder and madness that broke out after all of this on 9-9-94. ECW withdraws from the NWA "taking" world title status but there is a problem.

How can something be taken when it is already gone?

There's another problem as well.

The WWWF/WWF was a member of the nwa again from 1971 through 1983 and only recognized the nwa world title like the other territories.

When wcw was a member they had a world champ alone side the nwa world champ.

So in essence it could be argued that the WCW title is a splintering of the world title not a continuum of the world title verifying ecw's claims to the world titlemaking it not a splintering of the world title but the world title itself leaving the nwa title without status.

This is an argument that I recognize although it still raises questions.

Sense ECW and WCW are defunct the WWE championships are the only true world titles in wrestling.

One to Remember wrote:<span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>Unification</span>. When Jerry Lawler unified the AWA World USWA heavyweight and WCCW Heavyweight titles together that pretty much gave the USWA and WCCW world title status even after being deunified (is that a word?) with the AWA World heavyweight championship.

There was no "USWA" championship involved. Lawler "unified" the AWA and WCCW titles to create what was called the "Unified World heavyeight championship". He even did a couple of interviews with all three belts before stating that he was going to give the AWA and WCCW belts back to their respective promotions because they were now more or less considered regional championships and considered secondary to his new title. WCCW recognized Lawler's claim to the "Unified" title, but the AWA didn't and they ended up eventually stripping Lawler of their own title in January 1989 after his relationship with Verne fell apart completely.

The USWA (initally consisting of both a Dallas branch, formerly World Class Championship Wrestling, and a Memphis branch, formerly the CWA) wasn't officially formed until several months after the creation of the "Unified World title", and the Memphis USWA promotion eventually became the only group to recognize it after all of the other groups that were once involved like Continental and the Dallas USWA (which Kevin Von Erich took back control over from Jerry Jarrett and started running as World Class again) were no longer in the picture. The Memphis group did have a Southern title however, and it would eventually go on to be renamed as the USWA heavyweight title in 1993.